2025-26 PSU MBB Thread

[PSUForever]

Indiana was averaging 45k in their 55k stadium in the 5 years before Cignetti...We're not even half filling the BJC. But without an influx of $ to upgrade their roster, Indiana likely is still in the same spot. Unless we put in an influx of money, we're likely in the same spot.

Jones is right on PSU fans not being basketball fans (in relation to our peers)...hell, look at any post here talking College Basketball (a handful of people join in) or the NBA (people come out of the woodwork telling you how bad the NBA/basketball is). Most of the teams in our conference have hoops fans that will support the team win or lose. Pulling in a post that I made two years ago...

Looking at our last two NCAA caliber teams, here are the numbers down the stretch...

Saturday 1/11/20 - ranked 20th hosting Wisconsin - 10,139
Saturday 1/18/20 - Ohio St (Thon Game) - 14,785
Wednesday 1/29/20 - ranked 24th hosting Indiana - 7,656
Saturday 2/8/20 - ranked 22 hosting Minnesota - 15,261 (bravo)
Saturday 2/15/20 - ranked 13th hosting Northwestern - 14,402
Tuesday 2/18/20 - ranked 9th hosting Illinois - 9,506 (really disappointing)
Wednesday 2/26/20 - ranked 16th hosting Rutgers - 8,345
Tuesday 3/3/20 - ranked 20th hosting 16th Michigan St - 13,437
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday 1/11/23 - Indiana - 8,502
Saturday 1/21/23 - Nebraska - 11,297
Sunday 1/29/23 (Thon Game) - Michigan - 12,047
Wednesday 2/8/23 - Wisconsin - 7,213
Tuesday 2/14/23 - Illinois - 7,297
Sunday 2/26/23 - Rutgers - 12,082
Sunday 3/5/23 - hosting 21st Maryland - 10,672 (really disappointing)

There isn't another team in the conference outside of Northwestern that has this many empty seats in their building as they're pushing for an NCAA bid. There are many factors here (BJC too big, fanbase too spread out for weeknight games, lack of fans that make attending basketball games a priority, etc)...but they are factors that no one other than Northwestern faces (and it's that much tougher to recruit bringing high school kids into a morgue when our peers have packed houses night in and night out, most even in their down years).

No one talks about it because we stink. Do you think the Indiana football message boards were loaded with tons of people visiting and commenting when they had Tom Allen or whomever churning out 3-9 or 4-8 records with maybe 1 B10 win a season? Their fans were not so jazzed about a general CFB discussion while they stunk at football either. People mainly come to this board to discuss Penn State sports not whether Duke will win the NCAA championship in basketball.

The answers are pretty simple:
-Invest in the program and get NIL at least up to average for the B10

Then you probably stick with Rhoades for one more year just to avoid a huge buyout and see what he can do with those resources. I would can him now and start fresh with a new coach who knows he will have at least average NIL resources to work with which should attract a decent coach.

Nevertheless, Kraft needs to figure this out and get support for the program. Not easy but he gets paid a boat load of money to figure out these types of issues/challenges.

I wonder what his answer would be if you asked him..."What is your plan to get Penn State basketball competitive as in at least finishing in the middle of the B10? Because right now whatever plan that is in place is not working."

 

[Erial_Lion]

When the answers involve coming up with an 8 figure influx of money for a team with no big donors and little overall support, the answers are far from simple.

And I can assure you that the Indiana message boards (ie Peegs, my go-to) had a few orders of magnitude more posts/interest in Indiana football than we have about PSU hoops.

 

[PSUForever]

Here's something to think about relative to Penn State basketball and fan support.

What if this year we pulled an Indiana football season? I know it is an absurd notion but go with me here. So say we started winning and winning and cracked the top 5 by early Feb then kept on winning through the B10 tournament. Do you really think we would have lousy fan support at a big game at BJC in late Feb vs another top 10 B10 team like Michigan or Illinois? The place would be packed or at least close to packed. Our fans would come to the B10 tourney in Chicago or an NCAA Tournament game or the Final Four. I am not saying we would have more support than every other team at these neutral site games but to think that we would have weak fan support, not buying it.

 

[BCS PSU]

When the answers involve coming up with an 8 figure influx of money for a team with no big donors and little overall support, the answers are far from simple.

But there are a lot of programs that are doing much more with less than PSU is. God, St. Louis was in the top 25 for a lot of this season; I wouldn't think that they're loaded with NIL money. Does more money need to be invested into the basketball program? Of course. However, what has happened to this program since the loss to Texas in the NCAA Tournament three years ago isn't all about NIL. It also doesn't explain getting blown out on a neutral court by Pitt, whose fans also complain that they don't have enough NIL for basketball, or losing all four games that played this season to Northwestern and Rutgers, which I also wouldn't think are loaded with NIL money for basketball.

My main point is that, despite hurdles that this program faces, it never should be as bad and hopeless as it is right now. The people who are hired to run and coach this program for the past three seasons completely have failed to even reach the modest levels of the past two head coaches.

 

[BCS PSU]

Here's something to think about relative to Penn State basketball and fan support.

What if this year we pulled an Indiana football season? I know it is an absurd notion but go with me here. So say we started winning and winning and cracked the top 5 by early Feb then kept on winning through the B10 tournament. Do you really think we would have lousy fan support at a big game at BJC in late Feb vs another top 10 B10 team like Michigan or Illinois? The place would be packed or at least close to packed. Our fans would come to the B10 tourney in Chicago or an NCAA Tournament game or the Final Four. I am not saying we would have more support than every other team at these neutral site games but to think that we would have weak fan support, not buying it.

I've been to IU and MSU games in the late 1990s and early 2000s on Saturdays when the BJC was packed, so it's happened before.

 

[Erial_Lion]

Here's something to think about relative to Penn State basketball and fan support.

What if this year we pulled an Indiana football season? I know it is an absurd notion but go with me here. So say we started winning and winning and cracked the top 5 by early Feb then kept on winning through the B10 tournament. Do you really think we would have lousy fan support at a big game at BJC in late Feb vs another top 10 B10 team like Michigan or Illinois? The place would be packed or at least close to packed. Our fans would come to the B10 tourney in Chicago or an NCAA Tournament game or the Final Four. I am not saying we would have more support than every other team at these neutral site games but to think that we would have weak fan support, not buying it.

Sure, our fans will jump on the bandwagon...our peers that we're competing against don't have a bandwagon because their fans are all-in every season. Nebraska is an extreme example, but look at the support they give to a program that has been historically awful. As I posted earlier, we played a key game on 2/18/2020 ranked 8th/9th in the country, and we had 9506 fans in a 15k+ building. Do you think there is another power 5 team in the country that would play in front of 40% empty seats in mid/late February while ranked in the top 10?

 

[bdgan]

Indiana was averaging 45k in their 55k stadium in the 5 years before Cignetti...We're not even half filling the BJC. But without an influx of $ to upgrade their roster, Indiana likely is still in the same spot. Unless we put in an influx of money, we're likely in the same spot.

Jones is right on PSU fans not being basketball fans (in relation to our peers)...hell, look at any post here talking College Basketball (a handful of people join in) or the NBA (people come out of the woodwork telling you how bad the NBA/basketball is). Most of the teams in our conference have hoops fans that will support the team win or lose. Pulling in a post that I made two years ago...

Looking at our last two NCAA caliber teams, here are the numbers down the stretch...

Saturday 1/11/20 - ranked 20th hosting Wisconsin - 10,139
Saturday 1/18/20 - Ohio St (Thon Game) - 14,785
Wednesday 1/29/20 - ranked 24th hosting Indiana - 7,656
Saturday 2/8/20 - ranked 22 hosting Minnesota - 15,261 (bravo)
Saturday 2/15/20 - ranked 13th hosting Northwestern - 14,402
Tuesday 2/18/20 - ranked 9th hosting Illinois - 9,506 (really disappointing)
Wednesday 2/26/20 - ranked 16th hosting Rutgers - 8,345
Tuesday 3/3/20 - ranked 20th hosting 16th Michigan St - 13,437
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday 1/11/23 - Indiana - 8,502
Saturday 1/21/23 - Nebraska - 11,297
Sunday 1/29/23 (Thon Game) - Michigan - 12,047
Wednesday 2/8/23 - Wisconsin - 7,213
Tuesday 2/14/23 - Illinois - 7,297
Sunday 2/26/23 - Rutgers - 12,082
Sunday 3/5/23 - hosting 21st Maryland - 10,672 (really disappointing)

There isn't another team in the conference outside of Northwestern that has this many empty seats in their building as they're pushing for an NCAA bid. There are many factors here (BJC too big, fanbase too spread out for weeknight games, lack of fans that make attending basketball games a priority, etc)...but they are factors that no one other than Northwestern faces (and it's that much tougher to recruit bringing high school kids into a morgue when our peers have packed houses night in and night out, most even in their down years).

9k on weeknights and 15k on weekends would be great.

 

[Bison13]

I don’t wanna go back and reply to each comment or quote it but a couple things. I don’t think Hurley is some spectacular Coach either but the name recognition and your ability to potentially keep mid Atlantic type recruits and possibly get a couple transfers could help with the talent gap. Juric and Mingo are going to be tough to keep if they even want to stay. Both of them played well, I know they both have warts and I don’t care how highly ranked Mingo was he actually exceeded my expectations. The kid had no help. You could probably get rid of just about everybody else on the rest of the roster if you wanted.
Last thing about Dave Jones, he’s just a trash person. Doesn’t matter who’s in charge at Penn State and for any sport. He thinks the people at this university owe him something and they don’t,

This was the worst, least competitive, least talented, and most poorly coached PSU basketball team that I've seen, and I've been following them since the mid to late 1980s.

2002-03 was worse. Me and 4 of my buddies played pick up against members of the team in Pollock commons courts and as long as Shareef CHambliss and Brandon Watkids weren't on, we won every time. Must have been the worst group of 6'6 or taller players ever. Jan Jagla was OK, but Rob Summers, Jason McDougal and Kevin Fellows, give me a break. I got a tip dunk over Fellows, he was so bad.

2004-05 was awful too, part of the reason was McDougal and Fellows were still on the team. Geary Claxton was on the team and their best player as a freshman. You had Luber, Morrissey and Walker as your guards.

Jamal Tate going in to rehab really hurt both those teams, but even with him, they would be exactly like this current team

 

[BCS PSU]

Sure, our fans will jump on the bandwagon...our peers that we're competing against don't have a bandwagon because their fans are all-in every season. Nebraska is an extreme example, but look at the support they give to a program that has been historically awful. As I posted earlier, we played a key game on 2/18/2020 ranked 8th/9th in the country, and we had 9506 fans in a 15k+ building. Do you think there is another power 5 team in the country that would play in front of 40% empty seats in mid/late February while ranked in the top 10?

9k on weeknights and 15k on weekends would be great.

The fact is that it's always going to be an issue for a school like PSU to attract very large crowds during winter weeknights just because so many PSU fans would have to travel in trecherous conditions through mountains to get to and from games. Therefore, winter weeknight crowds of 10,000 or so would be perfectly acceptable. Pitt can't even attract crowds of 5,000 now for their games, and they play in the heart of a major American city.

 

[Erial_Lion]

2004-05 was awful too, part of the reason was McDougal and Fellows were still on the team. Geary Claxton was on the team and their best player as a freshman. You had Luber, Morrissey and Walker as your guards.

That's the team I thought was the worst...looking back, we finished 216th in KenPom while going 7-23 (1-15 w/ 1st round loss in Big Ten Tournament).

3 best wins...
at 141 Rutgers (83-80)
124 Northwestern (65-62)
211 Lehigh (73-64)

7 worst losses...
vs 198 South Carolina St (63-43)
vs 196 Valparaiso (69-56)
vs 120 Illinois St (82-73)
128 Michigan (66-62)
at 128 Michigan (63-48)
at 124 Northwestern (54-39)
at 123 Purdue (77-50)

 

[Erial_Lion]

That's the team I thought was the worst...looking back, we finished 216th in KenPom while going 7-23 (1-15 w/ 1st round loss in Big Ten Tournament).

3 best wins...
at 141 Rutgers (83-80)
124 Northwestern (65-62)
211 Lehigh (73-64)

7 worst losses...
vs 198 South Carolina St (63-43)
vs 196 Valparaiso (69-56)
vs 120 Illinois St (82-73)
128 Michigan (66-62)
at 128 Michigan (63-48)
at 124 Northwestern (54-39)
at 123 Purdue (77-50)

Same recap for this season...sitting at 137th in KenPom while going 12-20 (3-17 w/1st round loss in Big Ten Tournament).

3 best wins...
24 Iowa (71-69)
at 54 Washington (63-60)
73 Minnesota (77-75)

7 worst losses...
129 Rutgers (85-72)
77 USC (77-75)
vs 96 Pitt (80-46)
at 122 Maryland (96-73)
at 129 Rutgers (74-62)
vs 74 Providence (77-65)
at 102 Oregon (83-72)

 

[Tom McAndrew]

 

[bdgan]

Game highlights? All I saw were lowlights.

Except Juric. He has really improved.

 

[Bison13]

That's the team I thought was the worst...looking back, we finished 216th in KenPom while going 7-23 (1-15 w/ 1st round loss in Big Ten Tournament).

3 best wins...
at 141 Rutgers (83-80)
124 Northwestern (65-62)
211 Lehigh (73-64)

7 worst losses...
vs 198 South Carolina St (63-43)
vs 196 Valparaiso (69-56)
vs 120 Illinois St (82-73)
128 Michigan (66-62)
at 128 Michigan (63-48)
at 124 Northwestern (54-39)
at 123 Purdue (77-50)

The SC St game might have been the worst performance of a PSU basketball team ever

 

[Chumboshifko1]

The SC St game might have been the worst performance of a PSU basketball team ever

It was a brutal beating for sure.

 

[Binder74]

The fact is that it's always going to be an issue for a school like PSU to attract very large crowds during winter weeknights just because so many PSU fans would have to travel in trecherous conditions through mountains to get to and from games. Therefore, winter weeknight crowds of 10,000 or so would be perfectly acceptable. Pitt can't even attract crowds of 5,000 now for their games, and they play in the heart of a major American city.

Since mid week games have a hard time getting fans, why not take those games on the road? Play a game in Scranton, Altoona or even Pittsburgh. That would get local alumni to the game that wouldn't drive to SC. It works when they play in Philadelphia. The B1G teams might not like it but too bad.

 

[HarrisburgDave]

Since mid week games have a hard time getting fans, why not take those games on the road? Play a game in Scranton, Altoona or even Pittsburgh. That would get local alumni to the game that wouldn't drive to SC. It works when they play in Philadelphia. The B1G teams might not like it but too bad.

I like this. BJC is awful anyway. Giant Center, Palestra, etc would be a huge improvement. Even Allentown has a relatively new downtown arena that would be nice for such games.

 

[BCS PSU]

Since mid week games have a hard time getting fans, why not take those games on the road? Play a game in Scranton, Altoona or even Pittsburgh. That would get local alumni to the game that wouldn't drive to SC. It works when they play in Philadelphia. The B1G teams might not like it but too bad.

Better yet, and since PSU recently has built a new field hockey stadium and soccer practice facility among other projects, why not just build a new state of the art 10,000 seat arena designed specifically for basketball.? Of course, it also could host the other winter sports and retire Rec Hall to intramurals.

 

[manatree]

Better yet, and $ince P$U recently ha$ built a new field hockey $tadium and $occer practice facility among other project$, why not ju$t build a new $tate of the art 10,000 $eat arena designed $pecifically for ba$ketball.? Of cour$e, it al$o could ho$t the other winter $port$ and retire Rec Hall to intramural$.

Add them up.

 

[Erial_Lion]

Since mid week games have a hard time getting fans, why not take those games on the road? Play a game in Scranton, Altoona or even Pittsburgh. That would get local alumni to the game that wouldn't drive to SC. It works when they play in Philadelphia. The B1G teams might not like it but too bad.

We'd be giving away a home court advantage, which is something I'd be strongly against.

Not to mention that even the Palestra game has started to lose it's alure (I really hope we keep having one for selfish reasons, but there were a lot of empty seats this year against a really good Illinois team).

 

[Erial_Lion]

Better yet, and since PSU recently has built a new field hockey stadium and soccer practice facility among other projects, why not just build a new state of the art 10,000 seat arena designed specifically for basketball.? Of course, it also could host the other winter sports and retire Rec Hall to intramurals.

"Why not just build"...do you realize how much money you're talking with this "just", for an Athletic Department that's already financially strapped?

 

[Parkland Fan]

Indiana was averaging 45k in their 55k stadium in the 5 years before Cignetti...We're not even half filling the BJC. But without an influx of $ to upgrade their roster, Indiana likely is still in the same spot. Unless we put in an influx of money, we're likely in the same spot.

Jones is right on PSU fans not being basketball fans (in relation to our peers)...hell, look at any post here talking College Basketball (a handful of people join in) or the NBA (people come out of the woodwork telling you how bad the NBA/basketball is). Most of the teams in our conference have hoops fans that will support the team win or lose. Pulling in a post that I made two years ago...

Looking at our last two NCAA caliber teams, here are the numbers down the stretch...

Saturday 1/11/20 - ranked 20th hosting Wisconsin - 10,139
Saturday 1/18/20 - Ohio St (Thon Game) - 14,785
Wednesday 1/29/20 - ranked 24th hosting Indiana - 7,656
Saturday 2/8/20 - ranked 22 hosting Minnesota - 15,261 (bravo)
Saturday 2/15/20 - ranked 13th hosting Northwestern - 14,402
Tuesday 2/18/20 - ranked 9th hosting Illinois - 9,506 (really disappointing)
Wednesday 2/26/20 - ranked 16th hosting Rutgers - 8,345
Tuesday 3/3/20 - ranked 20th hosting 16th Michigan St - 13,437
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday 1/11/23 - Indiana - 8,502
Saturday 1/21/23 - Nebraska - 11,297
Sunday 1/29/23 (Thon Game) - Michigan - 12,047
Wednesday 2/8/23 - Wisconsin - 7,213
Tuesday 2/14/23 - Illinois - 7,297
Sunday 2/26/23 - Rutgers - 12,082
Sunday 3/5/23 - hosting 21st Maryland - 10,672 (really disappointing)

There isn't another team in the conference outside of Northwestern that has this many empty seats in their building as they're pushing for an NCAA bid. There are many factors here (BJC too big, fanbase too spread out for weeknight games, lack of fans that make attending basketball games a priority, etc)...but they are factors that no one other than Northwestern faces (and it's that much tougher to recruit bringing high school kids into a morgue when our peers have packed houses night in and night out, most even in their down years).

Look at Lehigh's recent results.
The team is winning, and they are playing tonight for the Patriot League championship.
During the season the attendance at their games was pitiful. I used to literally try to count the nuber of students in the student section, and the number was usually around 50. Sometimes I would count the fans in the sections across from us, and depending on the visiting tream's fans, it was often less than 200.
I attended the semifinal on Sunday and the place was 75% full. The Cheerleaders did not show up!
I went to buy tickets for tonight's game and the only seats available are in the upper seats in the corner sections.
Conclusion, there are many fair weather fans at Lehigh (also PSU), but if you start winning they will show up.

 

[Psufan13]

But there are a lot of programs that are doing much more with less than PSU is. God, St. Louis was in the top 25 for a lot of this season; I wouldn't think that they're loaded with NIL money. Does more money need to be invested into the basketball program? Of course. However, what has happened to this program since the loss to Texas in the NCAA Tournament three years ago isn't all about NIL. It also doesn't explain getting blown out on a neutral court by Pitt, whose fans also complain that they don't have enough NIL for basketball, or losing all four games that played this season to Northwestern and Rutgers, which I also wouldn't think are loaded with NIL money for basketball.

My main point is that, despite hurdles that this program faces, it never should be as bad and hopeless as it is right now. The people who are hired to run and coach this program for the past three seasons completely have failed to even reach the modest levels of the past two h

Look at Lehigh's recent results.
The team is winning, and they are playing tonight for the Patriot League championship.
During the season the attendance at their games was pitiful. I used to literally try to count the nuber of students in the student section, and the number was usually around 50. Sometimes I would count the fans in the sections across from us, and depending on the visiting tream's fans, it was often less than 200.
I attended the semifinal on Sunday and the place was 75% full. The Cheerleaders did not show up!
I went to buy tickets for tonight's game and the only seats available are in the upper seats in the corner sections.
Conclusion, there are many fair weather fans at Lehigh (also PSU), but if you start winning they will show up.

And it takes money invested to win for people to show up.

 

[Binder74]

We'd be giving away a home court advantage, which is something I'd be strongly against.

Not to mention that even the Palestra game has started to lose it's alure (I really hope we keep having one for selfish reasons, but there were a lot of empty seats this year against a really good Illinois team).

Not sure what home court advantage there is with empty seats. That's the home field advantage Pitt has for their home football games. It's not like B1G team fans are going to show up in Altoona.

 

[manatree]

Since mid week games have a hard time getting fans, why not take those games on the road? Play a game in Scranton, Altoona or even Pittsburgh. That would get local alumni to the game that wouldn't drive to SC. It works when they play in Philadelphia. The B1G teams might not like it but too bad.

I like this. BJC is awful anyway. Giant Center, Palestra, etc would be a huge improvement. Even Allentown has a relatively new downtown arena that would be nice for such games.

Nothing will improve player performance like turning half of their home games with the comfort of a home game routine into road games where they get to miss class, ride a bus and either sleep on the bus ride back or sleep in an Econo Lodge and miss their morning classes the following day.

 

[Erial_Lion]

Look at Lehigh's recent results.
The team is winning, and they are playing tonight for the Patriot League championship.
During the season the attendance at their games was pitiful. I used to literally try to count the nuber of students in the student section, and the number was usually around 50. Sometimes I would count the fans in the sections across from us, and depending on the visiting tream's fans, it was often less than 200.
I attended the semifinal on Sunday and the place was 75% full. The Cheerleaders did not show up!
I went to buy tickets for tonight's game and the only seats available are in the upper seats in the corner sections.
Conclusion, there are many fair weather fans at Lehigh (also PSU), but if you start winning they will show up.

Honestly, comparing a Patriots League team to a Big Ten team isn’t just apples and oranges, it’s apples and watermelons. However, I’d like to think that regardless of how bad our fan support is, we’d sell out a home Big Ten Title game.

 

[manatree]

Not sure what home court advantage there is with empty seats. That's the home field advantage Pitt has for their home football games. It's not like B1G team fans are going to show up in Altoona.

The biggest home court advantage is that the players don’t have to go on the road. If Penn State fans hesitate to travel wintry roads during a weeknight, do you really think players and staff want to do the same on a bus?

 

[KingLando]

Try to hire Bobby Hurley...he's used to being at a place it's tough to win and he has name recognition

 

[Erial_Lion]

Not sure what home court advantage there is with empty seats. That's the home field advantage Pitt has for their home football games. It's not like B1G team fans are going to show up in Altoona.

A home court advantage isn't just about fans. It's about routine, sightlines, travel...teams still had plenty of home court advantage in the 2020-2021 season playing in front of empty gyms. Making the team travel, sleep in a hotel, play in an unfamiliar gym, etc. gives away much of that home court advantage.

 

[Psufan13]

Try to hire Bobby Hurley...he's used to being at a place it's tough to win and he has name recognition

i have two candidates for the job. One is 176-113 in 9 years, with 3 NCAA appearances the other is 227-186 over 13 years with 4 NCAA appearances. Who you taking based off those results alone?